21 Food Lies Our Parents Told Us

As kids everything our parents said was gospel, we never doubted their knowledge for a second…until we got old enough to start questioning it. For some reason one thing parents seem to love doing is lying to us about food, what it is and where it comes from – why I’m not sure, I’m not a parent but it seems to be the done thing.

One that has always effected me was what my loving mother and father told me about dates. Apparently they were toe jam, the gunk you could pick out of your toes at the end of the day which was then rolled up into a date like snack which people then ate. Yes. That is what they told me, and I still can’t eat a date.

So here they are, a few of the lies parents have told their children about food:

The Classics:

Bread crusts will make your hair curly

Carrots help you see in the dark

Spinach will make you strong

Cheese comes from quarries

Haggis is an animal that lives in Scotland

Eating cheese before bed will give you nightmares

If you eat the seeds from a piece of fruit, a tree will grow in your tummy

These are hilarious!!! I’ve never heard some of them, but they would definitely have traumatized me as a kid. But wait – are you telling me that bubble gum doesn’t actually stay in your tummy for 7 years if you swallow it, because I TOTALLY STILL BELIEVED THAT, WTF MOM.

I’m laughing hysterically! I think my parents told me almost all of them and here I am today! No tree growing in my tummy and the gum must have made it out of my body by now! Gotta love the “fear” approach our parents used! Thanks for sharing this!

Hahaha, I’m not sure how common some of these are, they may be particular to your family! I will say though, that spinach WILL make you strong…not in a magical Pop Eye kind of way but it has a lot of iron and healthy nutrients. And carrots contain beta carotene, which does contribute eye health.
My mom used to tell me that there was a park in my stomach and if I didn’t eat it, there would be no trees in the park and everyone would be sad.

I know there is truth in some of them – they had to come from somewhere after all! I made the list up after asking a bunch of people in various Facebook groups so it’s a collection of different cultures – I noticed people from the same places came up with similar ones so apparently no children are safe from the lies! Haha sometimes you have to tell fibs to get little ones to do things I suppose.

Haha, these are all so funny! I don’t like carrots at all, I never did and I do remember my mother saying that if I eat them I will see in the dark. Same with the moon being made out of cheese. I guess that was a general notion from the cartoons we would watch.

Omg, I have not heard of most of these either! These are absolutely hysterical. I heard the apple seed one, so I was always afraid to see the fruits seeds since I didn’t want to grow a tree. LOL But most of them I have not heard of. Thanks for the good laugh.

I’ve swallowed gum A LOT, I wasn’t allowed it when I was younger because I would always swallow it, then in school if a teacher ever caught you with it you’d have to swallow it, so if the tale was true I’d have an awful lot of gum sitting in my tummy!